Melissa Lucashenko's mesmerising colonial Queensland epic Edenglassie has taken out the Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award for 2024, along with the record $50,000 prize.
This year's prize, organised by the James Cook University-based Foundation for Australian Literary Studies (FALS), had a record 235 entries but it was Lucashenko's extraordinary novel on Queensland's colonial past and a reimagined Australian future that emerged from a shortlist of exceptional quality.
A delighted Lucashenko accepted the award and the accompanying H.T. Priestley Memorial Medal at a ceremony at the JCU's Bebegu Yumba Campus on Monday night, with the acclaimed First Nations writer revealing her links to the Indigenous people of North Queensland made her win even more special.
"I'm absolutely thrilled and honoured to receive the Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award," she said.
"Though I hail from the south and my books are mostly set on Bundjalung Country, I've had a longstanding connection to Far North Queensland and Townsville in particular. My kinship family have roots in Palm Island, Yarrabah, Hopevale and elsewhere on the Cape.
"Edenglassie was strongly influenced by these bama mobs' much more recent, and distinctly northern, experiences of colonisation. It's therefore particularly gratifying to see my novel recognised in this award at JCU. Always was, always will be. Bugalbeh (thank you)."
The book's title is taken from an early colonial name for the city now known as Meanjin or Brisbane, with the stories in Edenglassie working in curves and circles, tying together the mid nineteenth century and the present.
They are held together by strong characterisation, as is the case with the witty, wise and gutsy Granny Edie.
The Roderick Award judges praised Edenglassie for the qualities that have long characterised Lucashenko's work: originality, energy, erudition, and a distinctive blend of humour and gravitas.
Lucashenko's standout story finished ahead of fellow shortlisted entries Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton, Life As We Knew It: The Extraordinary Story of Australia's Pandemic from Aisha Dow and Melissa Cunningham, Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville, Two Sparrowhawks in a Lonely Sky by Rebecca Lim, Amanda Lohrey's The Conversion, A Brilliant Life by Rachelle Unreich and Alexis Wright's Praiseworthy.
The Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award has the broadest scope of any national literary competition, recognising outstanding achievement in all forms of writing.
It helps to achieve its namesakes' goals of developing the writing and reading of Australian literature, recognising books that will make a lasting contribution to our culture.
